Gallet Is Back. Two Hundred Years After It Was Founded, Here Is What It Brought to Geneva

Some brand revivals are announced and then quietly forgotten. The watches never materialise, the website goes dark, and the whole episode becomes a footnote in watch forum threads. Gallet was announced as part of Georges Kern's House of Brands restructure back in 2025, and the watch community spent the best part of a year wondering whether it would actually arrive or simply become another entry in the long list of heritage revivals that never quite made it off the runway.

It arrived. At Geneva Watch Days 2026, Gallet unveiled four collections across fourteen references. The watches are real, they are on sale, and they start at £2,200. For a brand that timed the Wright Brothers' first flight in 1903 and sat on Harry Truman's wrist, that feels like a reasonable place to begin.

What Gallet Actually Is

The original Gallet was founded in 1826, making this its 200th anniversary year, which is either a coincidence or very deliberate timing. The brand built its reputation as a specialist chronograph and stopwatch manufacturer, supplying timing instruments to the United States military and becoming the official timer of the Indianapolis 500 for several decades. The Flying Officer chronograph, one of the new collections, takes its name from a reference first introduced in 1939 that was subsequently issued to military pilots and aviation personnel across multiple allied forces during the Second World War.

Within the House of Brands structure, Gallet occupies the most accessible price tier. Universal Genève sits at the top as the ultra-premium independent. Breitling holds the middle ground. Gallet comes in below both, positioned directly against Tudor, Longines, and the upper end of the independent microbrand market. The entry point is £2,200 for the Flying Officer Automatic on a strap, which puts a watch with genuine historical provenance into a category where most of the competition has no story at all.

The Four Collections

The Flying Officer is the anchor of the relaunch. A 40mm steel chronograph and a time-and-date automatic, both drawing directly from the 1939 reference in dial layout and case profile. The chronograph is powered by the Gallet Calibre 23, a Sellita SW510-based movement with a 65-hour power reserve. The automatic uses the Gallet Calibre 17, based on the Sellita SW200, with 41 hours. Two dial variants on each: black and light blue. Clean layouts, pump pushers on the chronograph, a rotating 12-hour bezel on the automatic. Priced at £2,200 to £3,600 depending on configuration and bracelet.

The Multichron Pilot is a 42mm exploration chronograph with a telemeter scale and a secondary time zone function, referencing the brand's history of producing field instruments for pilots navigating across time zones without GPS or automation. The Multichron Sport is a 41mm motorsport chronograph with a tachymetre scale, drawing from the brand's long association with motorsport timing. Both collections use the same Gallet Calibre 23 movement and share the same pricing structure: £3,400 on a strap, £3,600 on a bracelet.

The Gallet Classics are the most interesting of the four and the most expensive. Three references at 38mm, each a heritage tribute: the Tribute to Multichron Yachting Big Eye, the Tribute to Multichron 45, and the Tribute to Silverlight. Where the contemporary collections use Sellita-based calibres, the Classics step up to Breitling's own manufacture Calibre B09, a hand-wound movement with COSC certification and a 70-hour power reserve. The B09 is the same calibre that sits inside the Breitling Premier and Navitimer B09 collections, a genuine manufacture movement in a watch priced at £5,300, which is either very good value or a deliberate signal about what this brand is trying to do. Probably both.

The Question the Collection Has to Answer

Two previous attempts at relaunching Gallet produced watches that were noticed and then forgotten. The brand had a brief appearance at BaselWorld in the early 2010s, generated some interest, and then quietly receded. Whether 2026 is different comes down to one thing: distribution and sustained presence. House of Brands has confirmed that Gallet will sell through gallet.com and a network of authorised retailers, with Breitling's existing dealer infrastructure providing access in markets where the brand currently has no independent presence.

The pricing is honest. The movement choices are defensible. The historical material, timed the Wright Brothers, Truman's wrist, allied military pilot heritage, is genuinely compelling rather than retrofitted. Whether the market has room for a fourth brand in the £2,200 to £5,300 tier, alongside everything else competing in that space, is the question that the next two years of sales data will answer rather than a press release from Geneva.

For now, the watches exist. After a year of announcements and speculation, that is a meaningful first step.

Collections and pricing:

• Flying Officer Automatic: £2,200 (strap) / £2,400 (bracelet)
• Flying Officer Chronograph: £3,400 (strap) / £3,600 (bracelet)
• Multichron Pilot Chronograph: £3,400 (strap) / £3,600 (bracelet)
• Multichron Sport Chronograph: £3,400 (strap) / £3,600 (bracelet)
• Gallet Classics: £5,300

Official site: gallet.com